Independent book review: You Wish

You Wish, by Terry Tyler

Published 2011

I admit it, I am probably not the target audience that Terry Tyler had in mind when she wrote You Wish. I’m the wrong sex. But I still liked it.

You Wish could be categorized as “urban paranormal fantasy.” Set in the southern part of the UK and spanning a period from the 80s to 2010, You Wish is about Ruth, a woman who scrapes out a living as a psychic advisor at county fairs and other events, and some of the people she comes into contact with.As a girl, Ruth finds a magical wishing stone: supposedly, if you touch it and make a wish, the wishes come true. Ruth is deeply conflicted: on one level, she laughs off such a possibility; on another, she’s afraid of the power of an object to grant wishes and keeps the stone hidden most of her life.

However, one day her young daughter sets up a little display at her parents’ psychic display at a local fair; for a charitable donation, anyone can make a wish on the stone. Three people wish on the stone. One, Petra, wishes she could fall in love like all her friends do; Sarah wishes she could lose weight to achieve her lifelong goal of wearing Size Zero clothes; and a childless couple wishes they could conceive a baby.The story traces how events conspire to realize these wishes—and the horrifying, yet easily foreseeable effects on the characters’ lives.

Independent author
Terry Tyler

What I liked

Tyler skillfully weaves the separate stories of the characters together, even bringing some of them back together near the end. She also brings tells Ruth’s back-story well, showing how the young Ruth acquired the wishing stone and the emotional roller-coaster a school-age girl goes through. I have to admit, I’ve seldom had much patience for the drama of the average teenage girl in fiction, but Tyler really knows how to make her reader see through Ruth’s eyes. In a few chapters, Tyler also shows very believably exactly what Ruth is afraid of the stone’s power.

Another thing I really liked is the realism of the story. All the characters were three-dimensional; no one was just an evocation of Tyler’s favourite TV show characters. And the marginal lives of the modern psychics, pathetically selling paintings and psychic readings at fairs and conventions to supplement their social assistance cheques, skimping to raise two children while finding money for dope, shows me that Tyler is not only a skilled observer and reporter of life around her. She doesn’t buy the romantic line that psychics and marginal artists sell. She also shares (I think) my own understanding of “magic.”

Weaknesses

There were very few things about this book to criticize. Sure, there were occasional typos and awkward sentences, but I defy you to find me any book without a few. (Stieg Larsson fans, give up now.)


There were some long information dumps, about the back-stories of Petra (the girl who wished to fall in love) and, to a lesser extent, Sarah. Tyler wrote several passages about Petra’s pursuit of her true love as if she were summing it up for a book report. Many critics have told me to “show, not tell” in my own writing, and for the most part, I think they’re right.

Summary

Overall, however, this is an excellent story, skillfully told. Congratulations to Terry Tyler for proving, yet again, the independent authors are producing excellent books.

4*

Writing about sex

Sex (In A Book) — how much is too much?

That’s what Russell Blake, author of Geronimo Beach and other action novels, asks in his guest blog post on the World Literary Café.

When is everyone’s favourite passtime in page form too much, whatever that is? I'll admit I don't read bodice rippers or erotica, so that's not what I'm talking about. I'm asking the open question: when does spice stop being seasoning, and instead overpower the main dish in general fiction?

As you can imagine, the post sparked a debate. When you’re finished with this post, read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, a controversy has erupted in my home town, Ottawa over Sex: A Tell-All Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Technology.

The exhibit was designed by the Science Centre in Montreal, where it ran to great success but no controversy. It has also been shown in Regina, Saskatchewan, again without eliciting a lot of opposition.

But once it came to Ottawa—in fact, even before it opened to the public — it encountered loud opposition. The federal (Conservative) Heritage Minister, James Moore said it was “insulting” to taxpayers. In an email to the museum’s director, Moore’s assistant quoted the Minister as saying it was “inappropriate for young children.”

The Museum of Science and Technology describes the exhibit this way:

It is an award-winning educational exhibition that answers the main questions young people have about sexuality. It imparts what science has to say on the topic, conveys a positive image of sexuality and, ultimately, helps young people hone their judgment skills so they can make responsible and informed decisions.

Image courtesy CBC.ca
(Luc Robitaille/Montreal Science Centre)

I haven’t seen it, but I plan to soon. And I’ll be taking my teenage son. The vast majority of comments about it, on the Museum’s website, in the mainstream media and elsewhere, are in favour of the exhibit. There are very few opposed to it. Yet the museum caved into the pressure, removing a section on masturbation and raising the age at which children can visit without a parent from 12 to 16.

The trouble with the latter change is that children whose parents will not take them to the exhibit at age 14 are exactly the ones who need accurate, unbiased information the most.

Discouraging opposition

The opposition to the exhibit is, unfortunately, easily predictable. Before you read some of the comments I gleaned from some easily accessible websites, try to imagine what they might be.

From Peter Baklinski, commenting on the Museum’s website:

I must inform you that me and my four children will not visit the museum again while the sex exhibition is running.

The sex exhibition is a travesty to the majority of Canadians who believe that sexual activity is reserved for spouses within the context of marriage.

Thank you for telling all of us how to have sex, Peter. 

From Ken Quick on Sun Media’s web page:

Perversion masquerading as "science" and "education". Your tax dollar at work.

The only reason I give more attention to idiotic comments like Quick's is that we need to understand the full range of opinion. 

I stress that the overwhelming majority of comments on all media (except maybe for Sun Media’s website—but remember that fora like these are moderated, so the published comments do not necessarily reflect the range of comments submitted) are positive. People in Ottawa generally support the exhibit.

From Cathy Payne, who commented on the CBC’s website:

The “insult to taxpayers" argument was rejected as an "attack on freedom" when the Heritage issue was championing the sport where two men go into a cage and try to kick one another to death.

That level of violence had no opponents from the "family values" champions. But while viewing an inanimate art exhibition they see vile sex.

Well said, Ms. Payne!

Your turn to weigh in:

What do you think? How should we talk about sex? From my point of view, sex is a complete normal, and wonderful thing. However, we learned very early that we’re supposed to be embarrassed by it. It’s something kept behind closed doors, under covers — literally. “Wheresmycountry,” a commenter on CBC’s web page, put it perfectly:

The more taboo and forbidden a subject is, the more fascinating it becomes. If you want to foster increased interest about sex among curious young minds, tell them it is something they are too young to know about. Works every time!

Please readers, share your thoughts. How can we talk about sex, write about sex, teach children about it so they don’t have shame, guilt and deeper problems with it? Write whatever you want. However, I will give you one warning: I will have no hesitation in tearing apart the argument that “sex education should be left to parents.” The empirical evidence is incontrovertible: that strategy has never worked.